Deirdre went for the Schoolmaster. He came into the hut again. He and Davey gripped hands. Then the Schoolmaster led him to the bunk again and stretched him out on it.
"It's all right, my boy! All right!" he said, brokenly. "You lie still now and let Deirdre look after you."
Davey's vigorous youth rebelled at the days of idleness which followed. The wound knitted quickly; his weakness vanished as it mended.
Conal had disappeared. No one had seen or heard of him since the night of the Wirree races. The Schoolmaster and Deirdre had accepted his disappearance as silent proof of his having fired the shot that had almost cost Davey his life.
When they went back to the shanty Steve talked incessantly about Conal. Although no more had been heard of M'Laughlin and the threatened raid had never been made, he was not easy about that half hundred head of newly-branded beasts in the Narrow Valley paddock.
At the end of the week Davey took the bit between his teeth.
"I'm going to take that mob to the Melbourne yards," he said. "We can't run them any longer in the Valley."
"It's too risky, Davey," the Schoolmaster said. "McNab's too quiet to be harmless, and there's only one man could run the mob with safety."
"And that's Conal?" Davey asked.
"There's not a man in the country like Conal with cattle. He knows every by-path and siding on the ranges. Then he's hail-fellow-well-met with the men on the roads. There's not one of them would give him away," the Schoolmaster said.